


February Words #19: Temperature

by StaringAtTheTwinSuns



Series: February Words (2018) [18]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Arguing, Bickering, Caretaking, Illnesses, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 06:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13735182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaringAtTheTwinSuns/pseuds/StaringAtTheTwinSuns
Summary: Han and Luke try to take care of Leia when she isn't feeling well, but they just end up arguing with each other. A mostly happy, slightly angsty, OT3 story.Like all stories in this prompt series, this one stands alone (although it is a part of the same continuity as most of the others).





	February Words #19: Temperature

~21 ABY~

 

“Luke. Hey, Luke.” Han’s tired voice broke though Luke’s sleepy haze.

“Mmm.” Luke rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. He was definitely still on Nar Shaddaa time. “Just a few more minutes,” he mumbled. “Ben’s leading meditation today.”

“Luke!”

This time, there was an edge to his tone that made Luke finally open his eyes.

“It’s Leia,” Han said. “She’s burning up.”

“She’s what?” Luke’s mind briefly went to other places—fire and explosions that couldn’t possibly be true, because Leia was right here, beside him.

“She’s burning up,” Han repeated. “Some kind of fever.”

That made more sense. Luke had been so deeply asleep, so glad of the warmth of their bed he hadn't noticed, but Leia beside him was hot and flushed, and she turned in her sleep as though uncomfortable. Luke placed his hand on her forehead, and she stilled, mumbling softly. Leia had a fever, but the Force didn't give him any real sense of dread.

"She's okay," he said.

Han gave him a skeptical, sideways look.

"Han. Why did you even wake me up if you didn't want my opinion?" Luke rolled his eyes and crawled back under the blanket. "She'll be fine, and I'll be with her if she isn't."

"So what, you're just going to lie there?"

Luke took a deep breath, and summoned every ounce of Jedi calm he could muster. Han's overprotectiveness could be sweet, sometimes, but the other half of the time it just stopped Luke--and now poor Leia--from getting the basic sleep they needed to recover from jump lag and what seemed to be no more a common cold.

"Fine. I'm up." He kissed Leia's forehead--trying not to smile as Han quickly followed suit--and followed Han into the kitchen.

"Good." Han paced back and forth from one end of the room to the other.  "I thought we could... I don't know, make her some soup or something."

_ You couldn't do that on your own? _ Luke wanted to snap, but he knew that was more the jump-lag talking. "Okay," he said. "Why don't you do that, so it's ready when she gets up? I'll go see if I can make her comfortable."

He half-intended to go back to sleep, but Leia really was tossing and turning.

"Luke?" Her eyes fluttered open.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"It's so hot."

"Okay." He pulled back the blankets, and tucked the thin sheet up around her chin. "Better?"

"Mmm."

Sweat had pasted tendrils of hair to her forehead, and her cheeks were flushed pink in the dim light.

"Wait here," Luke whispered, and he went to get a towel, which he wet and wrung out till it was cool but nearly dry.

"Better?" He wiped the sweat from her brow, like his Aunt Beru had done for him when he was a kid.

"You're good at this," she whispered. "Promise you'll always take care of me?"

"Of course." He smiled. "Except when you're taking care of me."

She drifted off to sleep again, and Luke left the towel folded in a square on her forehead, so she wouldn't get too hot, and wake up again before she'd had a chance to really heal.

"She's doing better," Luke said, when he got back to the kitchen. "And  _ that _ "--he pointed to the pot Han was stirring--"smells amazing."

"Hey, hands off," Han chided. "You can have some when Leia's done."

"She just went back to sleep," Luke said. "We probably shouldn't wake her up now."

Something clouded, then... in Han's expression, and also over his presence in the Force. "Oh. Right. Yeah. Okay."

"It's not a problem," Luke said. "We can heat it up later."

For whatever reason, that seemed to make it worse.

"Yeah, whatever." Han shrugged away before Luke could touch him. "Just... go ahead and eat it. Drink it. Whatever the hell you do with soup."

And he stormed out of the kitchen, slamming his hand down on the door controls and giving them a dirty look when they still closed the door at the normal, long-ago-childproofed speed behind him.

***

Han was worried.

He knew that was all, and it wasn't Luke's fault, and it wasn't Luke's fault that he  _ knew _ things.

It wasn't Luke's fault that all Han could see was Leia, sick and miserable, and that even though he trusted Luke’s Jedi intuition, his own intuition was to protect the person he loved—even if the  _ other  _ person he loved seemed, as usual, to have things more than under control.

Leia was shivering under the thin sheet, her cheek pressed up against a damp cloth that had probably fallen from her forehead. Han sat down beside her, on the edge of the bed, and picked it up, thinking that the least he could do was to put it back where Luke had left it. But Leia’s arms were covered with goosebumps, and when Han touched her with the towel she jerked away.

“Why is it so cold in here?” she murmured. “Han? Turn off the cold. It’s freezing.”

The room wasn’t really cold, or hot, or anything other than the comfortable temperature the thermostat was always set to. But someone—Luke, Han guessed—had taken away the blanket and wiped Leia’s face with the cool towel.

It wasn’t Luke’s fault. Han knew that, but a frustrated sense of helplessness washed over him, and he gritted his teeth. “Yeah, looks like you lost your blanket.” He pulled it up to her chin and tried to relax at the way she smiled snuggling into it.  _ It’s just a cold _ , he told himself. But he hated to see her like this, all the same.

“I’m gonna…” he said. “I’ll, uh, be back in a minute.”

He needed to get some fresh air.

***

Luke found Han outside, by the Falcon, just pacing back and forth like he was waiting for something.

“Han.”

Han nodded, acknowledging his presence, but didn’t say anything. Tension rolled off of him in waves.

“Han. Can we talk?”

“I’m worried about her, kid. That’s all,” Han half muttered. “She was freezing, you know. Shivering. You were supposed to know what to do.”

“I’m not a healer, Han. I just… did what my aunt used to do for me.”

“Yeah, well your aunt apparently didn’t know what she was doing.”

That stung. Luke knew it shouldn’t, that Han was just trying to get a reaction, the way he did sometimes when he felt powerless against the world. Luke somehow didn’t think Han would appreciate that particular Jedi insight into his feelings, though. So he pushed his own frustration down, and said, “How’s she doing now?”

Han finally stopped pacing. “Better,” he admitted. “I think.”

“That’s good. It’s just a cold. It won’t take long.”

“I thought you weren’t a healer.” Han shot him a look that was tinged with frustration—but Luke could sense the love beneath it all.

“Han?” he said. “What’s bothering you, really?”

***

It was like they didn’t need him at all.

Han didn’t know how to say that to Luke, though. It wasn’t his fault that he and Leia and Ben had this power that Han couldn’t feel, couldn’t know. It wasn’t his fault that Han felt useless, sometimes, like this. Like he could just disappear from this family, and Luke and Leia would just… carry on.

So he said, “You and Leia just… know each other so well.”

And of all the crazy reactions in the universe, Luke smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

“So do you.”

Han shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. Of course I know you. But you  _ know _ each other. It’s the Force thing. Or the twin thing. Or… I don’t know.”

“Han.” Luke was close enough to kiss him, and for a moment Han was sure that was what he was about to do. But instead he just put his hand on Han’s shoulders, looked him straight in the eye, and said. “Trust me. Trust yourself. You do too. Tell me this: Who knew right away that Leia was sick, and who slept through it?”

“You were jump-lagged,” Han protested, but Luke just kept smiling and shaking his head.

“And who took off the blankets and made her cold?”

Han looked away. “She was hot when you did it.”

“And who made that amazing-smelling soup?”

“That she wasn’t even awake to eat. Drink.”

“She’ll be up soon.” Luke nodded back over his shoulder.

“Damn Jedi intuition,” Han grumbled, but he was smiling too.

“Han.” And now Luke was really, truly close enough to kiss, and Han’s decidedly non-Jedi intuition told him told him the chance was too perfect not to take it.

“Hey, Luke?” he half-whispered as they ended the kiss. “I was… kind of a jerk today. I’m sorry.”

Luke shook his head, and it was almost like a nuzzle against Han’s shoulder.

***

Leia woke for what felt like the hundredth time that day, to the sound of pots being rattled in the kitchen.

“Han? Luke?” she called, but neither of them seemed to hear her.

She pushed the heaviest of the blankets aside, a little woozy as she sat up in bed, but not as feverish, she thought, as she had been. As if on cue, her stomach growled, and she began to mentally weigh the pros and cons of getting out of bed versus going hungry.

“Don’t get up, don’t get up!” Luke’s voice rang out from the hallway, but it was Han who burst in through the door.

“Don’t get up,” he echoed. “We’ve got this.”

Leia could sense  _ something  _ between the two of them—in the Force, or maybe just in their banter.

“What have the two of you been doing?” she asked.

Han gave her a sheepish smile. “Just… cooking.”

“Well, it smells delicious,” Leia said, choosing to ignore the innuendo. “Better cooking than arguing, anyway.”

She sat up in bed and let Han plump her pillows, adding his and Luke’s to the pile.

“All right, Luke!” Han called. “We’re ready!”

Leia’s head throbbed at the volume of his voice, and a fresh round of chills swept over her body. She winced, and Han’s smile faded. “You all right?”

“Too loud,” she said.

Han opened his mouth, to apologize or object.

But Leia never got to find out which. Thank Jedi intuition, or maybe just the fact that they’d lived the better part of their lives together, but whatever the reason, Luke knew the perfect moment to walk through the door, bearing soup on a tray and a spray of wildflowers from the overgrown garden.

He planted a kiss on Han’s cheek, and Leia couldn’t help but giggle, even though it gave her another headache.

“You two are certainly domestic today.”

“Anything for you.” Luke placed the tray on her lap with a flourish and bent to kiss her cheek as well.

“Not too close,” she warned. “I don’t want to give you whatever I’ve got.”

Han grinned. “That doesn’t sound too bad.” And he kissed her too, on the other side. “Next time, I guess it’s your turn to take care of us.”   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, this is based mostly on movie canon and, since I'm writing a fic a day, I didn't have a lot of time to do research. "Jump-lag" in particular, is possibly not what people use in non-movie canon? I'm not really sure. And Nar Shaddaa was just a name I knew from Legends... no special significance here. Please forgive any inconsistencies with non-movie canon, fanon, your own headcanon, etc. ;)
> 
> As always, all feedback including concrit is welcome. :)


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